Draft:Impact of the 2024 CrowdStrike incident

The 2024 CrowdStrike incident had an impact.

Impact by sector
Outages were experienced worldwide. Since many corporate IT systems across the world use Windows and the CrowdStrike software, outages were reported across many business sectors. Globally, at least 2,691 commercial flights have been cancelled and more are expected, as the travel sector in general has been widely affected. By some estimates, Crowdstrike's error has caused problems to approximately 24,000 customers. The number of individual computers affected is hard to pinpoint as many of the customers are large organizations. In 2021, it was estimated that around 47% of companies in the Fortune 500 list were customers of CrowdStrike. On its website, CrowdStrike claims it has nearly 60% of Fortune 500 companies and more than half of the Fortune 1,000 among its clients.

Air transport


In North America, a ground stop was issued by United, Delta and American Airlines. Flights in the air continued flying, but no new flights were to take off. Allegiant Airlines were also grounded by the outage according to the FAA. About 1,500 flights were canceled in the United States due to the outage. Montréal–Trudeau International Airport and Toronto Pearson International Airport were affected in Canada, and Porter Airlines cancelled all flights. Vancouver International Airport was also reportedly affected in Canada, although it was unclear whether this was directly related to the global outages.

Swiss International Air Lines had 30% of flights grounded. Prague Airport in Czechia, Budapest Airport in Hungary and Lufthansa in Germany experienced issues. Ryanair's booking and check-in services were unavailable and was "forced to cancel a small number of flights", advising passengers to arrive at airports at least three hours before departure. This affected Slovakia's Bratislava Airport. Planes were not allowed to land at Zurich Airport. Wizz Air blamed the incident for its online services going offline. Dutch airline KLM suspended most operations, announcing that flight handling is impossible with the issue. Berlin Brandenburg Airport planned to stop flights until 8 (UTC). In Brussels, Charleroi Airport's employees manually checked passengers in, but other software alleviated issues by 10:00 (UTC+2) and there were minimal delays. ENAIRE's Aena, the Spanish national airport traffic control manager, made reference to an IT outage in their website and social media. All Spanish airports reported disruptions. Spanish airports were disrupted. Disruption to flights, particularly to and from the United Kingdom, was anticipated but currently minimal in the Isle of Man. Charles de Gaulle Airport and Orly Airport both also experienced problems related to check in and suspension of flights. Poznań–Ławica Airport experienced disruptions in passenger check-in systems. An emergency system was activated, but check-in processes were slower. Warsaw Chopin Airport also faced challenges with airline check-in systems, urging passengers to check flight statuses online.

Several airports experienced difficulties, including Edinburgh, UK whose departure boards froze, and Gatwick Airport, where automatic barcode scanning stopped working and had to be checked manually. Amadeus, which manages UK baggage at Heathrow, said they were affected by the IT outage.

The Berlin Brandenburg Airport announced that since around 7:00 a.m. (UTC+2), operational processes were affected by "IT problems at an external provider". While passenger handling continued with some restrictions, there were delays and some flights had to be canceled by the airlines. Several airlines (Eurowings, Ryanair, Vueling and Turkish Airlines) in Hamburg Airport had to issue tickets by hand.

Hong Kong International Airport experienced delays during check-in, primarily for passengers of the local budget carrier Hong Kong Express, resorting to staff members using handwritten signs to direct passengers to different check-in counters. The Hong Kong Airport Authority activated the emergency response, after airline websites and automatic check-in malfunctioned. Local Airlines Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Express and Hong Kong Airlines's booking systems were unavailable.

Jeju Air and Spring Japan experienced issues. Jetstar Japan had to cancel many flights (mostly domestic flights). Some of the self-check-in kiosks in Singapore Changi Airport were affected, delaying and forcing airlines to switch to manual check in. Cebu Pacific and Philippines AirAsia flights were delayed. Long queues formed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Tunisia was spared from the global outage despite temporary airport disruptions. Turkish Airlines cancelled some of its flights to avoid disruptions in flights.

In India, outages were being experienced with Air India, Indigo Airlines, Akasa Air, SpiceJet and Vistara. Handwritten boarding passes were being issued during the outage. The Ministry of Civil Aviation asked and ordered the airlines as well as the airports to be compassionate while providing food as well as seats if need be. As of 18:14 IST (12:44 UTC), over 200 Indian flights were cancelled with the tally of Indigo alone being 192.

Christchurch Airport is also having problems in New Zealand. Australian airlines Qantas, Virgin Australia and Jetstar were affected. A Sydney Airport spokesperson said that the outage had impacted some airline operations and that "there may be some delays throughout the evening". Melbourne Airport has also been affected, with website statements underlining the "global technology issue" as impacting check-in procedures, and advising passengers to consult with relative airlines. Canberra Airport, Darwin Airport, Adelaide Airport, Perth Airport, Hobart Airport, Launceston Airport and Brisbane Airport were also affected.

Ground transportation
Traffic disruptions were reported at the US-Canada border, with the Canada Border Services Agency blaming a partial outage of its telephone reporting system which was later resolved. There were long delays and police advised motorists to avoid the area. The Washington Metro Area Transit Authority suffered minor service delays in the early morning in America; their website/live tracking was unavailable until around 10:30AM on 19 July.

Malaysia's railway operator KTMB confirmed that its KITS ticketing system was experiencing technical issues. Transport for Ireland said its apps were down due to the outage. Ireland's Road Safety Authority said it was experiencing "significant disruption" to its National Car Test (NCT) centres.

Fuel stations have also been affected in Australia, with people stuck at fuel pumps unable to pay for petrol because payment systems aren't working.

UK rail companies were also affected. Cabs in London were also affected as the customers could not pay via credit or with debit cards and required cash.

Auckland Transport's HOP card in New Zealand had problems. Australian freight train operator Aurizon was affected. Regional trains in NSW, Australia on the Hunter Line and the Southern Highlands Line were cancelled or delayed with the Regional Bus and Train network in Victoria operated by V/Line having all lines suspended.

Healthcare
Many hospitals across the United States paused non-urgent surgeries and visits. While remaining open, hospitals have limited, if any, access to patient records; an outage in Epic Systems's electronic health record service affected patient care in several hospital systems. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center postponed all procedures that required anesthesia, and the Mass General Brigham hospital system cancelled all non-emergency procedures and medical visits. University Health Network experienced technical issues in Canada, saying hospitals' clinical activity would continue but warning that appointments may be delayed. A number of other Canadian hospitals faced difficulties, with Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services activating contingency plans as patient record systems were affected.

Britain's National Health Service (NHS) said that the issues are "causing disruption in the majority of [English] GP practices", with some of its services, such as GP surgeries, which rely on a software product called EMIS Web, unable to view and manage medical records, issue and manage prescriptions, or make appointments. Manx Radio reported that GP surgeries were impacted in the Isle of Man.

FPS Public Health in Belgium have confirmed that there were two hospitals impacted and have activated their emergency IT plans. They have also stated there is no impact to care, only to new patient admissions. The National Crisis Center were evaluating the impact in Belgium and stated there had no reports of significant problems in the security sectors and our critical infrastructure (e.g. power plants or transport sector). They also were informed of the issue impacting two hospitals in Belgium. Two hospitals in Lübeck and Kiel, Germany have cancelled non-emergency operations. The Spanish regional governments of Aragon, Basque Country, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia and Galicia reported issues with their healthcare services.

Systems in Wesley Hospital and St Andrews Hospital in Brisbane, Australia were affected.

Finance
Banks in South Africa, including Capitec Bank, were experiencing issues. Several Israeli banks were affected. Banks in the Philippines such as RCBC, Metrobank, LandBank, BDO, UnionBank, BPI, and PNB online systems was down due to the outage. E-wallets such as Maya, and GCash were reported also experiencing issues in the Philippines. The website and mobile banking application of DenizBank in Turkey cannot be accessed.

The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) said in a statement that only a few banks use CrowdStrike tools and many critical systems of most banks don't run on the cloud, hence they are not affected. India's largest bank State Bank of India has reported that none of its services were affected due to the outage. According to RBI's assessment, only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved. It has also added that the Indian banking systems are insulated to such outages and have only reported few minor disruptions. However, NSE and BSE have said that they have not been impacted amid reports of disruptions.

In Brazil, Bradesco Bank confirmed it was affected as well, and during the morning customers were able to login, and at 12:00 UTC the bank disabled the login button.

New Zealand banks ANZ, ASB, Kiwibank and Westpac had problems.

President Joe Biden has got in touch with CrowdStrike to provide any assistance if necessary. Microsoft and CrowdStrike stocks fell as a result of the outage. CrowdStrike's stock fell nearly 12 percent in premarket trading early Friday.

The London Stock Exchange, while operating normally, was unable to push news updates to its website. English gambling company Ladbrokes Coral and English supermarket chain Morrisons also reported problems.

Apps of Australian banks NAB, Westpac, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, Bendigo Bank and Suncorp were affected.

Polish banks, including Santander BP, ING Bank Śląski, and mBank, encountered issues related to the outage. Santander BP's helpline, video, and chat services were affected.

PKO BP clarified that its iPKO and IKO services were stable, but other banks faced difficulties.

Media and communications
Many American TV stations were unable to broadcast because of the global outage. KSHB-TV, one of the affected stations, had to resort to airing national news via Scripps News. Sim racing service iRacing was also affected by the outage in America. ESPN was unable to air the morning editions of SportsCenter on the morning of the outage in America, instead airing ESPN Radio's Unsportsmanlike, simulcasting with ESPN2. ESPN and ESPN2 later simulcasted Get Up! and First Take in place of SportsCenter, albeit without on-air graphics or b-roll. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was also impacted.

Major IT firms in India such as TCS, Infosys, Oracle, Nokia and many others also faced the outage, resulting in thousands of issues raised by employees and devices being stuck in bootloop and unable to recover. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT-In, issued a severity rating of 'critical' for the incident.

When some companies let their employees go home early as a result of the incident, the topic "Thank you Microsoft for an early vacation" momentarily became Weibo's most popular term. Universal Studios Japan announced that they would not be selling tickets via ticket booths over the weekend due to the outage; however, tickets would still be sold online or via designated ticket sales sites.

The issue affected the office laptops of DPG Media Belgium – which impacts JOE and QMusic Radio, banks, post services, government agencies. Telephone communication with the urban services in Antwerp were also affected. The Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium stated that the impact in Belgium is limited. Sky News was unable to broadcast live in the UK, as was the BBC's CBBC, a free-to-air children's television channel.

Several French TV channels affected by the issues include TF1, TFX, LCI and Canal+ Group networks. Phone and internet service provider Bouygues Telecom has also announced the unavailability of its customer service as a result of the outage. The operations of the 2024 Summer Olympics, scheduled to officially begin a week later in Paris, France, have also been affected. The incident happened a day after the Olympic Village opened, and organisers were processing the arrivals of athletes and delegates. The organizing committee said that a contingency plan was activated, and that only the delivery of uniforms and accreditations were impacted. The incident, however, is slowing down the operations with the accreditation desk at the press center closed, and security checks done manually using a list of names.

Australian media firms affected by the issues include the ABC, SBS, Seven Network and Nine Network. Ticketing at Docklands Stadium for Friday night's Australian Football League match between the Essendon Bombers and the Adelaide Crows was affected.

Social services
There were outages in 911 service or disruptions in 911 call centres' operation in some parts of Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. 911 was down for all of New Hampshire. In addition, Alaska is experiencing issues with non-emergency call centres.

Government websites in the Philippines, such as the website of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, were down due to the outage.

The New Zealand Parliament had problems. Sunshine Coast Council was one of several councils affected in Australia.

Foodservice
Supermarkets in the Philippines were affected due to crashed POS systems.

German supermarket chain Tegut closed some of its stores.

Customers have also experienced payment issues at Foodstuffs and Woolworths supermarkets in New Zealand.

Australian retailers and fast food chains are also hit by the outage, causing self-checkout and online order systems out of service. Supermarkets affected include Woolworths and Coles, with most stores being forced to cease trading for the day.

Other sectors
DCT Gdańsk, a major container hub in the Baltic port of Gdansk, Poland, struggled with Microsoft's operating system outage, impacting terminal operations.

Europe
Businesses operating in the Netherlands experiencing issues include Schiphol airport, KNAB bank, Transavia Airlines, Keolis Nederland, government services and hospitals are starting to cancel operations and scale down medical care.

The Central Health Information System of Croatia in Croatia was affected, although it was clarified that it was due to a concurent issue tied with moving their servers to a new location. Croatian Air Traffic Control was also disrupted. Professor Doctor Fernando Fonseca Hospital in Portugal has registered problems. The National Security Authority spokesman confirmed several institutions in Slovakia were affected. The pharmaceutical company Krka in Slovenia is said to have suffered a full outage of production and sent its workforce home. In Sweden, Air traffic was disrupted, tickets for soccer games and public transport could not be sold and the Malmberget mine was evacuated as a precaution. Vodafone, Nova Poshta, and Sense Bank in Ukraine experienced outages due to the update. Norwegian pharmacy chains Apotek1 had to shut down their stores for some time. Israel Post was affected. In Finland, OP Financial Group reported minor disruptions on investment partner and stock savings accounts. Finnair reported that they are experiencing problems with sending emails and SMS messages to customers.

Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team also suffered issues on the Friday of the Hungarian Grand Prix, with a Mercedes spokesperson confirming that the team had to manually address the problem on every computer it used. The issue also affected their engine customers, McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams.

Other
IT workers, major banks, telecommunications, radio and TV broadcasts are affected in the Philippines. Numerous Singaporean companies, including Singapore Airlines, Scoot, Singapore Post, Singapore Exchange (SGX), SPH Media, Singtel, M1, Grab and DBS Bank, reported various levels of service difficulties throughout the day on 19 July. The entrance and exit gantries of over 185 car parks managed by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) were also affected.

Australian businesses and government agencies were impacted hugely by the outages, including media companies, airlines, airports, supermarkets, hospitals, universities, law firms, pharmacies, casinos, train networks, petrol stations, stadiums and banks.

China was largely unaffected by the outage.